Look After You
by ericajanebarry
Summary: In the final days before their retirement, Richard and Isobel spend a week apart for the very first time. The effects of a short separation. "Absence makes the heart ..." and all that. Compliant with my other modern retirement AU fics.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Updated 11/7/2019. I haven't written a word in ages, and then suddenly last week new ideas started coming. I put them down fast and furious and was uncharacteristically thrilled with what I'd done.** **And thennn I went back to make sure it flowed with the three chapters previously written ... and discovered I'd switched to present tense in the new bits. Oh, I was _fuming._ I wasn't about to change the new parts in order to make them match because they needed to take place in the present, so that left only one thing to do; namely, go back and put the first three chapters in present tense. It was a slog. I spent several days hating life. Just when I thought I'd gotten them all, I'd find an inconsistency. But it was good, in the end, because it gave me a chance to go back and perfect some rough spots in the original story. So I'm posting a new chapter, yes, but I'm also updating the existing first three. The story has not changed; only the tense is different. The whole thing sounds better this way, so it was all for the best. There should be another update (Chapter 5) coming very soon. I've got to give a shoutout to my friends, kouw and ChelsieSouloftheAbbey, for bearing the brunt of my bitching when I discovered my predicament. Writers supporting writers is fanficcing at its best!**

 **xx,  
~ejb~**

* * *

He leaves it Sunday for as long as possible, holed up beside the fire with her and MacTavish. They drink tea, read the paper and doze until half past four.

"I hate to say it," she tells him as her head rests on his shoulder, "but you ought to be making a move. I don't relish the idea of you driving after dark."

"Yeah." He draws her closer, kissing her forehead. She catches his face in her hands and kisses his mouth. He returns the kiss, drawing her bottom lip between both of his own. She sighs softly and he pushes her back against the arm of the couch, resting his weight on top of her.

"Richard," she protests as they break apart, "you've got to go, sweetheart." God knows she doesn't want him to. In fact, she can feel the telltale lump forming in her throat. She also feels him against her, warm and masculine and just beginning to harden. She swallows hard. "I've got to let you go."

"I know." He moves off her and holds out his hand, helping her up. "Five more minutes." His voice holds the sort of rasp that speaks of longing and of emotion he tries in vain to rein in. He pulls her onto his lap; she tucks her face into his neck. She can hear him breathing, feel his chest rising and falling. Moving her lips to his pulse point, she relishes the steady throbbing beneath them.

"You'll remember to lock the doors at night," he insists. "I know we're in the middle of nowhere up here but do it anyway. And take the lad along when you go out walking."

At this she giggles. "Yeah, some watchdog! 'Stay back or risk death by dog drool!'" She glances over at MacTavish, whose tail thumps against the wood floor. "He is clever though. Knows we're talking about him." She lets Richard hold her for another moment, memorising the feel of his hands warm on her waist.

"Shall I send you off with some coffee?" She slides off his lap and holds out her hand.

Nodding, he rises, engulfing her hand in his own and trailing behind her to the kitchen. "Makes a change from that rubbish they sell at the petrol station."

"Go and put your bag in the car and I'll fix it."

He whistles for MacTavish, who follows him out into the drive and tries to jump in when the passenger door opens. "No, lad, sorry; not this time. Need you to look after Mumma for a few days." He scratches between the dog's ears and picks up his favourite ball, tossing it across the lawn. MacTavish takes off like a shot after it. When he brings it back, Richard throws it again.

Isobel watches from the kitchen window as the kettle comes to a boil, committing the scene to memory. When she sees him heading back towards the house she turns again to her task.

She feels it when he enters the room, even with her back to the door. Feels his eyes on her, drinking her in. Making memories of his own, she suspects. She senses him coming closer and her heart begins thudding wildly. Then his hands are on her hips, easing her back against his body, and her knees nearly buckle. He brushes her hair aside and kisses her neck, lingering on the spot just south of her jawbone that is always her undoing.

"God," she breathes, and he chuckles. "You make it awfully hard to send you away." She pours the hot water into the French press, then leans her head back against his chest. He nudges her forwards and she braces her hands on the countertop as he presses closer to her.

"Good. We won't be making a habit of it then," he whispers. He traces the shell of her ear with his lips and she shivers. "You feel so good, beauty."

The timer she'd set for the coffee chooses that moment to chime.

She looks back over her shoulder at him and grins. "Like a cold shower, eh?" She turns in his arms and embraces him loosely before filling up his travel mug and sneaking half a cup for herself.

She walks him to the car, hand in his hand, their fingers entwined. She feels the lump rising in her throat again and swallows it down even though she knows that he knows. A mirthless laugh breaks free at the same time two teardrops slide down her cheeks. "The last time I was faced with a separation like this one, I got married."

"Well it's a good job we've already sorted that then." He smiles so that she'll do and pulls her close again.

"You'll ring me when you get in, hmm? It's nothing to do with you; it's all the other idiots on the road."

"Will do. And I'll do my best to phone you tomorrow, though I'm in the surgery all day and then on call from five. Normally I fancy keeping busy, but this time I'm hoping it's slow."

"Last on-call shifts _ever,"_ she interjects, squeezing his hands.

"I'll miss the babies, but as to the rest of it … "

"It's time for greener pastures," she finishes for him. "Hey, c'mere." She winds her arms around his neck and draws him down to her mouth, brushing her lips against his. He tastes the tip of her tongue and moans softly. Then his hands are on her face, her mouth opening under his. She backs him into the door of the Rover. He feels her breasts pressing against his chest, her fingers lifting the hem of his shirt, her palms warm on his rib cage. They kiss until neither of them can breathe.

She pulls away and he watches her: all dark eyes, her chest heaving. He touches her cheek, traces the pad of his thumb over the fullness of her bottom lip. "Isobel," he murmurs, "sweet, sweet girl."

"Go on then," she tells him. "Away with you before it gets any later." Her stomach churns, but she smiles in spite of it, opening the door for him.

"Make that lad toe the line, eh?" Reaching up, he runs a hand through her hair. They're both avoiding _the words_ because of the finality they imply.

She nods. "Drink that coffee while it's hot."

"I shall." He pauses, looking at her peculiarly.

"God, we're as bad as teenagers," she giggles.

"Rather." He pauses again, and it's clear to her that she's not the only one feeling out of sorts. She hears him take a deep breath. "I love you."

"I love you too." She grins sheepishly. "Obviously." It has the desired effect of lightening the mood for a moment.

He gets into the car and she closes the door. "Enjoy the time, Isobel," he tells her. "Bye, love."

"I'll try. And don't you have too much fun round the hospital without me." Another rogue teardrop escapes and she sniffs, swiping at it almost angrily. "Bye, darling."

She hadn't been going to watch him drive away, but now she finds herself stood in the drive, waving until he reaches the road. In fact, she watches him make the right turn onto Cherry Tree Avenue, her eyes trained on the headlamps until he goes around the bend and out of sight. Tears are streaming down her face unchecked and she wipes her eyes on her sleeve and laughs at herself. "Well I can't change it," she says aloud to nobody, "I miss him. I believe I've earned the right."

She thinks about the statement she's just made. She has long been the sort to speak first and think about the ramifications later, and now she's obligated herself to something unprecedented. Feeling things —the undesirable, complex ones that had characterised her existence in the days after losing Reginald, at least— is a phenomenon she has become a touch too keen at postponing. Having earned the right to miss Richard entails forcing herself to _feel_ it, not bury it beneath endless task lists or mask it with a cheerful façade. No; she may once again be alone, and that not by choice, but she's got nothing to hide, no reason to pretend. Stood on the front step, she resolves that if she misses her husband, then —by God— she's going to miss him, and if it makes her cry, she will cry. And if, similarly, she finds ways of passing the time that happen to bring her joy, then she'll ride that feeling for all it's worth. If pressed to put her finger on the central theme behind the wisdom Richard has imparted to her over the course of their relationship, it's that he loves her just exactly the way she is: big moods, heavy baggage, sharp tongue and all.


	2. Chapter 2

She's just finishing undressing for bed when he rings at ten that evening. Unbeknownst to him she'd snatched up his button-down shirt from yesterday when he'd taken it off in the evening. She strips herself bare in the bedroom and closes her eyes as she pulls on his discarded shirt, breathing deeply the scent of him. She winces as a frisson of fear races along the length of her spine at the sight of their bed and the thought of sleeping in it all alone, but the ringing of her phone interrupts.

"Hello?"

 _"Hi, beauty," comes his greeting._

"Richard." She's certain her voice betrays her smile, as well as her relief. "How was the drive?"

 _"It was alright until I got just outside the city. You know; Sunday night, everybody rushing back for work. But I'm here, and only slightly worse for wear."_

"Oh? How's that?" She plays with the hem of his shirt where it brushes her thigh.

 _A tiny pause, and she can see him shrugging, the way the tops of his ears turn pink. "You're still there," he answers, clearing his throat._

She smiles, tears stinging her eyes. "Well, there is that. You'll be glad to know that I was most industrious this evening. In fact, tell me again about your mum's Belleek. What mark is it?"

 _"I believe it's the second black mark … why?"_

She giggles at the perplexity in his tone. "They're coming to hang the new cabinets tomorrow, so I've been clearing out. I've unearthed a lot of Belleek that belonged to my grandparents. Same pattern and mark as yours, I think. I can't wait to show you."

 _"Have you done? Seems we might be turning into collecting types!"_

She groans in mock horror. "Oh, that makes us sound terribly old!"

 _He laughs heartily. "Nah. What's it they say? 'Sixty is the new thirty,' or some such bollocks. Besides, you don't age, my love."_

She's not about to tease him; the sincerity in his voice makes her chest ache, and she can picture the earnest blue of his eyes. "Oh, you wonderful man. You know, I reckon I'd collect all sorts if I were doing it with you." She pauses as she turns down the bed, smoothing her hand across his pillow.

 _"Still there, love?"_

"Oh yes, just … Just not excited about the prospect of sleeping without you." It's a big admission on her part. Not so many years ago she'd been sleeping on the couch in her private surgery at the hospital to avoid the cold, empty bed at home. They'd worked together for nearly a decade when he caught her, and at that juncture she had denied her reluctance to face her ultimate fear.

 _"Would you like me to stay on the line until you fall asleep?" he asks her._

"Oh, no, I can't ask you that. Not when you've got to be up with the sunrise." She thinks for a moment. "Would you … would you just … talk to me for a few minutes?"

 _"What would you like to talk about?"_

"Oh, anything, really. I just want to hear your voice."

 _"Alright then. Are you in bed?"_

She climbs beneath the covers, holding the phone with one hand and his pillow to her chest with the other. "I am," she sighs.

 _"Very good. Well I don't suppose it'd do to talk about how much I wish you were here, or I was there. I hated leaving, you know."_

"Oh?" she grins, closing her eyes to focus on the sound of his voice.

 _"Don't be coy." He smiles and she can hear it. "Do you remember the morning I came into your office to drop some paperwork by? I'd managed to set my alarm incorrectly, so that it woke me up at three a.m., and then I started thinking about all I had on that day and I couldn't get back to sleep. So I thought an early start was in order. I expected I'd just leave my forms on your desk and send someone after them later. You could have knocked me over with a feather when I walked in at half past four and there you were."_

She giggles. "The look on your face was priceless. Never have we ever had a shortage of things to say to one another, but you froze stiff and stark and I couldn't help laughing."

 _"Ah, yes," he murmurs. "Well you see, there was a reason for that. Besides shock, I mean."_

"Really?" She's beginning to feel almost as relaxed as she does when he's right there beside her.

 _"You were breathtaking, wearing your Take No Prisoners suit, all cool and elegant. Nobody has the right to look that good at such an ungodly hour."_

She can't believe her ears. "Wait … what? You've got a _name_ for that suit?"

 _"Oh yes, quite! It deserves one, the way you fill it out!"_

She feels her cheeks flush and she's certain he can tell. It's still so thrilling to know she's capable, at her age, of turning his head. The novelty hasn't worn off even now that they're wed. She hopes it never does.

"I remember it well," she tells him, returning to the subject. "You saw that I was under the gun, preparing for my presentation to the donors, and you stayed. Brought me coffee and made me eat. Thus began our tradition of having breakfast together before work."

 _He had been alarmed (horrified was closer to the truth, but he hadn't let on) when he asked her how long she'd been there and she told him she'd not been home from Saturday. When he inquired as to the last time she'd eaten and she couldn't answer, the decision had been made for him. He said he was getting coffee across the street and would she like one, and she had smiled gratefully. He returned twenty minutes later with the promised beverage and a selection of pastries and fresh fruit. She'd been gobsmacked, told him it was too much. His response was to fold his arms across his chest, fixing her with a look that said he would hear none of it._

 _He pushed a bowl of grapes and strawberries across the desk to her. "Eat," was all he said._

"I was thankful to have you there, glad of the way you handled it. And _me,"_ she says softly.

 _"Can I tell you something, Isobel?" The tone of his voice changes, softening, and she knows that he's about to reveal something very close to his heart._

 _This is why I love being his wife._ "Please," she answers.

 _"I saw you that morning, so strong and polished; a leader at the top of her game, yet so human and fragile and I … I wanted nothing more than to hold you. To look after you, be a safe place. To tell you that you didn't have to try with me, that you were enough." She gasps, and at the same time he scoffs at himself. "As if I had anything to offer that you would have needed."_

"Richard!" she admonishes him. "Mind the way you talk about my husband! You most certainly did have what I needed. You're the only person I ever allowed to get that close. And I knew —I've always known— that I haven't got to pretend with you." She pauses, squeezing his pillow. "I was so very much in love with you then. I wish I'd said the words."

 _"I felt them, you know," he assures her quietly, and in his fatigue it comes out as 'ye ken.' She can't help but smile. "And anyway, ye did say them not long after." He's silent for a long moment, so that she begins to wonder if the call has dropped. "Ye ken, it never was evident to anyone else that there were chinks in your armour."_ Oh, that heavenly burr. _"If that matters tae ye. I've got a hunch that it might do."_

"It certainly would have mattered to me then," she agrees. "Tell me more? Just a little more." His voice has worked a trick in relaxing her, but she's loath to let him go.

 _"I lived for our breakfasts together. Sometimes we would talk, others we'd row, and then there were the times we were just quiet together. I think those were the ones I enjoyed the most. Very few people have been comfortable with my affinity for companionable silence. Ye've always respected me for it."_

She smiles, running the tips of her fingers over her phone as if, in so doing, she can touch him. "I'd never dream of trying to change you, my darling."

 _He sighs on his end of the line. "It'll be hard going, sleeping without you," he confesses, once more employing that hushed tone he reserves for her alone._

"Yes, it will. I'm dreading it. But I've kept you too long already and you've got to get some rest."

 _"Let our boy sleep on the bed if it helps, aye?" Normally Richard is adamant about MacTavish sleeping in his own bed beside the fireplace, but if Isobel pouts she can convince him to let the lad snuggle once in a while._

She glances at the end of the bed, where the dog has long since taken up residence. "Oh, he's already beat you to it." After a short silence she says his name. "Richard?"

 _"Yes, beauty."_

"I'm afraid of the empty bed. It's all the things I avoided facing up to … before you and I."

 _"Oi. You are **not** alone," he soothes. "You'll never be alone again, Isobel. And because I know you're thinking it, no; it's not a derogatory reflection on our marriage that the time you spent on your own still comes back to you. I never plan on spending another night apart after this week."_

"I know, my love. I do." There's a long pause as she smiles, sending a silent prayer of thanks to whatever combination of divine providence and luck brought him into her life. Into her heart. _So close._ "I'm going to say good night now. Touch base when you can."

 _"Of course. And if you're awake in the middle of the night thinking about us, know that I will be as well."_

"G'night, darling. I love you." She bites her lip to ward off the tears.

 _"I love you so much, Isobel. Pleasant dreams." And the line goes silent._

She switches off the bedside lamp and pulls the covers up to her chin. Breathing deeply, she recalls his words. _I wanted nothing more than to hold you._ He had loved her for so many years before she would acknowledge her love for him. He might not have said it in words (though she was certain he would've done if he hadn't thought it would frighten her) but his actions left no doubt.

Snuggled against his pillow with MacTavish snoring at her feet, she drifts off to sleep thinking of the first time he did, in fact, hold her.

 _It had been such a delicate, tenuous thing: his having caught her sleeping in her office, she having admitted that outside of work she had no life. Her façade had finally cracked, letting him behind the fortress she had built around her heart the moment Reginald died. She'd forced herself to admit, at long last, that she loved Richard, and she'd found, when she could no longer forestall the admission of her feelings to him, that as she fell, he caught her. That he loved her in return, and had done almost from the time they met._

 _Delicate, like their first kiss. In her kitchen, on the day she had asked him to breakfast so that she could show him her flat. They'd been talking about the night he, uncharacteristically emboldened by an abundance of liquid courage, had brought up the subject of her marrying again. At the time she had brushed it off, figuring him for slightly drunk, but now, upon reexamination, the truth was undeniable._

 _"Look, Richard," she told him, "I wasn't being fully honest with you that night. If it was the case that you were indeed speaking about the pair of us specifically, then I should have said that of course I've thought of it, but that the only man I would ever consider marrying is my dearest friend and I should hate to lose him if—"_

 _He interrupted her. "Then what you're saying is—"_

 _"That I'm in love with you, yes. And that it terrifies me." Struck by a sudden wave of dizziness, she, who, in all she had been through, had never fainted, thought in that moment that she just might._

 _"Isobel." The tone and timbre of his voice. She'll never forget the relief she heard, or the astonishment written in his beautiful features._

 _"Yes?" She had whispered it, afraid that the moment would dissolve if she spoke._

 _"Come here."_

 _Isobel Crawley took orders from no one. Not even Richard. Or, perhaps more accurately, most especially not from Richard. But in that moment, there was no case to argue, neither one vying to be heard over the other. And so she walked around the island to stand before him, her heart thudding wildly. He held out his hands to her and when she placed her own in them she couldn't help but gasp. She had so very long since written off the possibility of anyone touching her again._

 _He pulled her in, so close that she felt heat radiating off him in waves. "Is this alright?" he asked softly. She was powerless to do anything but nod. "I love you, Isobel."_

 _"You do?" she whispered. Had his eyes always been so blue?_

 _He grinned at her and nodded. "I have done from the time we met."_

 _She reached up without thinking, her hands coming to rest at the nape of his neck, and laughed, the sort of laughter that bubbles up from deep within. It rang of relief, of victory, of rising from the ashes. She leaned her head against his shoulder, and his arms came around her waist. In an instant she was yanked —like a weed, mused the gardener in her — out of her stupor, out of a long hibernation devoid of feeling, into a world of pure sensation. The softness of his shirt against her face, the warmth of his body beneath the fabric, the safety of his arms enfolding her. For long moments he simply held her, rubbing soothing circles across her back._

 _After some time she raised her head to look at him. She had always thought him handsome; now he positively took her breath away. She touched his face, tracing the line of his jaw. "Richard," she breathed, "I love you." She stared at his mouth, wanting to kiss him; hesitating; not sure she remembered how._

 _He cupped her cheek in his palm. "You can, you know. I want you to."_

 _Her heart had pounded as she drew him closer with a hand at the nape of his neck. Softly, tentatively, she'd touched her lips to his. He had responded gently at first, deepening the kiss as he felt her hands smoothing over his shoulders. He drew her bottom lip between both of his own and a tiny moan escaped her mouth as her lips parted for him._

Falling asleep proves less difficult than she'd expected, with his words freshly ringing in her head and the memory of their first sweetly-awkward moments of togetherness on her mind.

In the wee hours of the morning, when MacTavish wakes her to be let outside, the reality of the situation sets in. It's not yet gone four o'clock. She suspects the dog is still on "London time," as she and Richard have come to refer to their working hours.

Speaking of Richard, he must be getting ready to leave for work right about now, she muses. As she climbs back into bed after tending to MacTavish, a thought enters her mind. _He could well be showering at this very moment._

As she closes her eyes and burrows beneath the covers, the image of her husband's naked chest appears before her. Naked … _and wet,_ her imagination supplies, and next she knows she's in the shower with him, watching him turn his face into the spray while she catches the rivulets of water that run down his cheeks to his chin, his throat. With her lips. Her tongue. Her _mouth._ On his skin. _Oh, Jesus, I'm in trouble._ His skin; such a fascination. So pale, almost translucent. So different to her own.

 **oOo**

 _She'd thought it frivolous —absolutely foolish— the first time he had showered at her place and the notion had occurred to her … You know, you could be in there with him. Oh, sure, she'd done it before. With Reginald, many, many years ago. Sometimes it had been their only chance to be alone together,_ _amidst_ _the opposing schedules and graveyard shifts and the pressures of running a practice and raising a son. And oh, how they had enjoyed themselves._

 _But that had been long before the ravages of time and loss and grief, of stretch marks and hysterectomy scars and gravity, had wrought havoc on her body. It was true that Richard had seen her nude when they'd made love, but that was another story. Wasn't it?_

 _As it happened she hadn't the opportunity to worry about it much more. From inside the shower Richard had called out to her in the lounge._

" _Richard? Everything alright, love?" She spoke from the doorpost._

" _Yes. Sorry to have worried you, only I left my clothes in the bedroom. Would you mind terribly bringing them in?"_

" _Of course, darling. Hold on a tick."_

 _When she'd returned with his clothes, telling him she'd put them on the counter beside the sink, he had reached his hand out from behind the shower door and caught her by the wrist._

" _Isobel. Stay." He said it with enough uncertainty that it almost sounded like a question._

" _Stay?" she echoed, in part because she was positive she hadn't heard him correctly, and also because, supposing she had done, she'd no idea what he could possibly mean. After all, he was_ _ **naked.**_ _In the shower. In_ _ **her bathroom.**_

" _Yes, stay," he repeated. "Join me?"_

 _She was gobsmacked. Absolutely flabbergasted. Of all the things she'd expected him to say, this certainly wasn't among them._

" _But Richard, I can't …_ _ **Why?"**_ _she stammered. To an outside observer, the entire scene would have been hilarious._

 _He peered through the opening in the door at her, shrugging. "Do it, don't do it; I'm here either way. But you did say you were ready to_ _ **live**_ _again."_

 _Ah, so this wasn't out of character for him at all, she_ _realised._ _It was him; gently testing the boundaries of her comfort zone the way he'd always done. Throwing down the gauntlet in the most genteel of ways. And, as always, he would accept her whether she took the challenge or not. He was simply raising the stakes, following the progression of their relationship. Would she trust that he loved her —_ _ **all**_ _of her, all of the time?_

" _Yes, alright," she finally told him. Drawing a deep breath, she loosened the ties of her dressing gown, shrugged it off and stepped out of her knickers, looking him straight in the eye all the while._

 _He had the good graces to step back, making room for her, and to offer her a hand, but his mouth hung open the entire time._

" _Are you quite alright?" she asked him, a grin tugging at the corners of her own mouth._

 _He furrowed his brow, and a droplet of water ran down his forehead to the tip of his nose._

 _Chuckling softly, she kissed it away. "You look like a trout, sweetheart!"_

 _Comically, he snapped his jaw shut and she leaned into him, laughing. He maneuvered her to stand beneath the spray, his arms loosely encircling her waist._

" _You are perfect," he told her. "I_ _realise_ _this is hard for you, but you're incredible, beauty. And I know that it'll take time, but I want you to be comfortable … like this, with me."_

 _They shared a look and she smiled softly. "I want that, too." She ran a hand through his damp hair. "Hold me?"_

" _Of course. Thank you for indulging me." His eyes held such reverence and she reached out, her thumbs smoothing across his cheekbones, and kissed him, running her tongue along the seam of his lips. He opened for her, moaning into her mouth when her tongue touched his own. His hands pressed the small of her back … closer, closer; skin on skin, belly to belly._

 _When the kiss broke she laid her head on his shoulder, closing her eyes, and sighed contentedly. He touched her, running gentle fingertips over her arms, her shoulder blades, tracing the length of her spine._

 _Her chest heaved, expelling a sob she'd been fighting back. He took hold of her chin, lifting it so that he could look into her eyes. She smiled even as tears ran down her cheeks. He returned the smile, his thumbs caressing the indentations of her iliac crest. He knew; he understood, and she hadn't needed to say a word._

 _She kissed his body, his beautiful skin. Nipping at his throat, sucking his collarbones, enjoying the rasp of his chest hair beneath her lips. She traced the indentations of his ribs with lips and tongue, lingering over the scar that marked the place where half a rib was missing. She ran the tips of her fingers over the discoloration, kissing her way back to his mouth, scraping the edges of her teeth across his bottom lip._

" _I need you," she told him a moment later, their eyes meeting. Saying it made her heart race._

" _Oh, Isobel." Apparently her confession affected him just as much. "So brave. Tell me what you need."_

" _Touch me," she murmured. "Everywhere." Her voice lowered to a whisper, barely audible. "Love me."_

 _He turned her gently, gathering her to him, her back against his chest, and fitted himself to her. His arms wrapped around her waist, he swayed their bodies softly. She turned her head to rest her cheek against his. She'd spent so many years —decades, in point of fact— bereft of intimacy, of touch, and now she had it in full measure: pressed down, shaken together; running over.* The rush of warm water cascading over her body, the heat, greater still, of his skin. The rasp of a day's worth of stubble on his face against the smoothness of her own. He was pressing tiny kisses along the contour of her shoulder, the curve of her neck, and she tipped her head to the side to give him better access._

 _He chuckled against her skin, lapping at a stream of water running off her shoulder blade. "You like this, don't you, beauty? Hmm? You want this."_

 _She nodded._

" _You want_ _ **more.**_ "

 _She nodded once again._

" _Mmm, I rather enjoy you speechless," he teased. She glared at him over her shoulder, trying to affect a pout, but he broke into a grin and then so did she and he caught her chin between his thumb and forefinger and nibbled at her petulant bottom lip. His left hand slid to her hip and he rolled his pelvis against her._

" _Richaaaard." He was growing hard at the feel of her, and his erection pressed into the cleft of her bum. It. Felt. So._ _ **Good.**_ " _Oh, Jesus, love!"_

 _He slid against her, cupping her breast in his right hand. She arched into his palm, circling her hips. "Yeah?" His voice was wonderfully raspy and it sent shivers down her spine._

 _She nodded, tilting her head to rest against the side of his face. "Just. Like. That."_

 **oOo**

Suddenly she is jolted from her reverie as MacTavish lands in her lap with a force that knocks the breath from her lungs _,_ his tail wagging as he licks her face.

"Oh!" she shrieks. "Yes, alright, Mumma will get your breakfast. Come on, then." She shakes her head as they make their way to the kitchen. "Your daddy's got you spoilt but good, lad. It's an awfully good job you're cute."

After sorting out MacTavish, she makes her way to the conservatory, watching summer's early sunrise paint the sky indigo and bronze. She leans against the doorpost and lingers through the duck's egg blues and salmon pinks, recalling the train of thought that had very nearly got her into trouble. Here it is, first light on Monday morning. Richard left her a mere twelve hours ago and already she's both fallen asleep and awakened to thoughts of him and her and … _sex._ Well, very nearly, anyhow. And he isn't due home until late evening on the Friday.

She growls in frustration as she starts the coffee. It's shaping up to be a _long_ week.

* * *

*Not mine. It comes from the gospel of Luke, and perhaps it's weird here, but it seemed to me like an in-character stream-of-consciousness thought that Isobel would have had and silently smirked about. Particularly at the irony of it having occurred to her whilst in the arms of her lover. Or at least, it's in character for _my_ Isobel, who was at one time a divinity student, amongst all of her other pursuits.


	3. Chapter 3

In the master suite of his wife's flat in Ladbroke Grove, Richard Clarkson tosses and turns. It's been his home too since the time they acknowledged that they were more than simply friends, but it was _hers_ for so long before that, that being here without her feels altogether wrong.

Not to mention the fact that the bed itself suddenly seems gigantic. He'll never tell her (well, actually, he quite likely will do, seeing as he's never liked keeping anything from her), but he'd made off with a t-shirt she'd worn the day before he left. When he'd got into bed he clutched it tightly, breathing in her scent. He turns over as if to put his arm around her, rolling his eyes when he remembers that she's back in Yorkshire. But then he catches it: the rosemary scent of her shampoo on her pillow. It has the effect of comforting him in one sense, but it also heightens his awareness of the fact that he is alone.

He knows he could ring her and she'd humour him, that there'd never be an instance in which she'd refuse to talk to him (the absurdity of the hour notwithstanding). But he has an image of her sweet face, long lashes fanning out against her cheeks as she sleeps, and on the off chance that she is, in fact, asleep, he is oath to disturb her. Instead he allows his mind to wander, puzzling out precisely how and why she became so vital to his well-being.

 **oOo**

 _From the first moment of their acquaintance, he had known that theirs would be more than simply a working relationship. He had been in private practice as a maternal-fetal medicine consultant then, and she'd been freshly arrived from Manchester, newly installed as specialty registrar in obstetrics at St. Mary's Hospital. She'd called him in for a consult on one of her OB patients, and he'd piqued her interest, as well as embarrassed her slightly, when he said he knew her by reputation. Professionally, she was the embodiment of cool competence. When they had finished discussing the patient, she invited him to her private suite to chat. He guessed that she figured, as the new girl in town, it was wise to make connections. Seeing as the two of them would likely confer on a regular basis, he was a logical choice. Once he was sat down on the other side of the desk from her, however, he began to see another facet emerge. He asked what had prompted her to leave Manchester when it was clear she was so well thought of, and her response was the first crack in the plaster of her façade._

" _Oh, ehrm … My husband died a few years back and it proved to be too much for one person, running the practice alone." She looked down at the floorboards and squeezed her eyes shut._

 _He was an_ _ **arse.**_ This is why we don't do 'friendly conversation,' idiot _. He_ _apologised_ _for his impertinence, thinking it would be most convenient if the floor were to open up and swallow him whole._

 _But she took it with all grace. "There's no possible way you could have known. It's me who should_ _apologise_ _for getting choked up. Only I haven't had much occasion to say those words aloud, really."_

 _As the conversation progressed, he got the distinct impression that she wanted to be forthright with him, but that every time she exposed a little too much of her true nature she would panic. It was as if, in throwing herself headlong into her work and fighting shy of the mention of her husband's death, she could talk herself into the notion that it wasn't real, that he had merely been away and could return to her at any given moment._

 _He_ _recognised_ _it in her because it was a phenomenon with which he had been long familiar, having spent nearly thirty years of his own life doing the same. He perceived glimpses in her of genuine warmth and vulnerability, as if she longed to share her burden with another human being, but was reluctant to trust._

 _That was the moment he was first overcome, as he'd told her on the phone, with the need to hold her, to be a port in the storm. He longed to be for her what he'd needed ever since losing Jess, the thing he'd never found: a place to be himself, whether he be joyous or distant or sorrowful or angry or in need of affection._

 _It was the instant he fell in love with her._

 _In the initial years of their friendship, he saw her only from time to time. Two years after her arrival in London she was promoted to Chief of Obstetrics and he hardly saw her at all for a while, the nature of her new position being more administrative than clinical at the outset. He worried about her then, wishing they were close enough that he could ring her every so often to check she was alright. As it happened, St. Mary's Chief of Neonatology retired and he was on the short list of candidates to fill the position. He kept the hospital board waiting until he could secure enough staff at his own surgery to cover the move._

 _On the day he signed the contract, he accompanied the retiring Chief to Isobel's office to deliver the news. She was under considerable duress preparing for the quarterly budget meeting, and he knew her well enough by then that his first glimpse of her spoke volumes. She presented with a smile, but there was tension in her shoulders and exhaustion in her eyes. That is, until the moment she caught sight of him. He watched her relax, breaking into a smile that crinkled the corners of her eyes. He was gratified to see it; hopeful that, if nothing else, she would feel she had an ally at the hospital._

 _The pair of them began to work closely, forming something of an unofficial team. Their communication was seamless; one would anticipate the other's next move before any words were spoken. This was not to say, however, that there was always agreement. As a neonatologist, the baby was his chief concern, whereas the mother was hers. They often took to arguing treatment options in their off hours, whether she persuaded him to try the curry house in her street or he brought her to his_ _favourite_ _pub in Shepherd's Bush. Each one would fight their own corner until they reached a consensus that stood to benefit both mother and baby as often as possible. A year into their alliance, St. Mary's boasted the highest survival rate in all England of infants born before 25 weeks gestation, as well as the lowest combined mortality rate among expectant mothers and their newborns._

 _He learned so much about her in those years. She loved her work. It was in her blood, and not simply because she was the daughter of a physician. He'd never met anyone who came by medicine so naturally. Her intuition was spot-on; her intellect easily surpassed his own. She had fought long and hard, as a woman, to prove herself in a field that was still male-dominated, yet she was the personification of humility and kindness. He got the impression that, in her view, every single person with whom she interacted had something to teach her._

 _There were, to be sure, observations he made about her that had nothing whatsoever to do with their vocation. She carried herself with a kind of grace and self-assurance (regally, he thought; like a dancer and a commandant) that belied her unassuming, self-deprecating manner. Her eyes betrayed every emotion she felt, and the more he was around her, the more he sensed that those emotions were highly nuanced. Her work —and its ability to subsume her existence, thereby masking her grief— was her obsession and her safety net._

 _But once in a great while he would catch a glimpse —ephemeral; a flicker— of something wild, edgy and just a little dark in her. The laughter that sneaked out when she got a bit squiffy, wrinkling her nose and scrunching up the corners of her eyes. The exhilaration —her jaw firmly set, shoulders squared, pupils dilated, pulse fluttering in her throat when they argued. The look in her eyes that time they'd been preparing together for a meeting of the hospital board and she reached up, natural as anything, and adjusted his shirt collar after he shrugged into his suit coat. Unless he was a complete idiot, that was longing that he saw. It was the first time he allowed himself to hope that perhaps she could, one day, return his affections._

 _That was also the first time he imagined what it would be like to taste the sweet smile on her lips, to feel the wild beating of her heart beneath his fingertips. To have her small, strong hands on his body, touching him like a lover._

 _Once that door was opened, it was impossible to close. Had her legs always been so long, her lashes so dark? Had her eyes always looked straight into his soul? He wanted her, beneath him and above him and all around him. Sobbing in pain and crying out in pleasure; raging and furious and soft and sweet and silly; day and night and always, forever; till death did them part._

 _There was just one small problem. He still had to work with her. To be thoroughly present, mentally and physically, and to think like the other half of their shared brain, regardless of the fact that he suddenly found it a struggle to breathe properly in her presence._

 _Just the one small problem indeed, and then there was the two-tonne elephant in the room: she was in love, all right, but not with him. He had done his share of reading; he kept up with the medical scene, such as it was, enough to know that Reginald Crawley had been an excellent physician. But he must also have been one hell of a man, to still hold his widow in thrall more than a decade after his death._

 _What did he have to offer her that could ever come close to filling that void?_

Only that I love you, and I want to see you soar. _Where had that come from? He didn't know; only that it was true._

 _He thought that it would do his head in. If, in order to be near her, he never got to be more than a friend, he'd do it rather than risk losing her. But he was certain he'd seen her look at him as if she were wondering what they could be together, if only she could push past her fears._

 _While he was busy puzzling it out, fate did him a kindness in allowing him to find her on that all-important morning two years ago in the surgery well before daybreak. He brought her breakfast; he kept her company. He got her talking about life outside of medicine. He listened as she confessed that she hadn't very much of one anymore —a life, as it were— and he gently suggested that they do some things together. That day marked a turning point for her. The combination of his sympathetic but steady urging and her own_ _realisation_ _that working herself to death was no way to live was the catalyst for her rebirth._

 _And he was there to watch her blossom: days he didn't see her at the hospital and she would ring him before bed just to touch base. Dinners at her_ _favourite_ _when their fingers would brush as they reached across the table at the same time … and she'd leave her hand in his. Nights at the pub when she would smile freely as she told him of her family's house in Newton-on-Ouse in North Yorkshire. The way she leaned her head against the back of the booth and closed her eyes, the faint suggestion of a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth as she_ _savoured_ _the rosé._

 _He found himself intensely jealous of the wine on her lips._

 _It went without saying that he wanted to kiss her then. She was captivating: at ease with him, beginning to trust again. He didn't do it; this had to be her idea. She'd come so far, but the situation was tenuous enough that one misstep could frighten her off completely, undoing years of progress._

 _When he did put his foot in it with her (because it was always going to happen sooner or later), she was exceedingly gracious and good-natured. It had been a trying week at work and he had lost track of the number of shots he'd knocked back. Meanwhile she'd just received word that her son had proposed to a sweet, pretty young woman whom he did not love, and she'd gone a glass or two beyond her limit as well._

 _He had just come back from the bar with a sherry for her and a pint of lager for himself._

 _"I'm so sorry," he'd told her, setting her drink in front of her, "the queue was a mile long."_

 _"Thank you." She'd smiled, accepting the drink from him. "What was it you wanted to ask me?"_

 _"Well I'm not sure I have the right …"_

 _"Please, Richard. If anyone's got the right to be asking me anything, it's you."_

 _He'd given her a tight smile. "Well, thank you for that. Just … all this talk of Matthew and Lavinia's impending nuptials has got me thinking." He'd paused to fortify his courage with a swig of drink. "I'd be interested to know … if you've ever thought of marrying again."_

 _"Are you thinking of getting married, Richard? I wasn't aware you'd anyone in your sights! Well, if you are, you're a better man than I am, Gunga Din!"_

 _"Why?"_

 _"Well, with good friends like you, I enjoy my life as it is, and I wouldn't want to risk things by changing it."*_

 _Her words had stung on several levels. Had he simply been imagining the changes in her of late, the growing closeness between them? And did she really think that there could be anyone but her for him? But once he'd smartened up he_

 _realised_ _that she'd answered him as charitably as she could have done, preserving his dignity and protecting her own heart, lest he be taking the piss._

 _As it happened, he hadn't invented it. The atmosphere had indeed changed, and the truth came to light that morning over breakfast at hers. They'd both been doing a sort of funny, self-deprecating dance in each other's presence of late, a result of the mutual awareness that there was_ _ **something**_ _between them and their shared uncertainty surrounding what to do about it. "I can be really awkward," one would seem to caution. "Oh, yeah? You think you're bad? You haven't seen awkward until you've seen me!" the other would counter._

 _And then, in an instant, she had given it a name. "I'm in love with you." Count on her to be the brave one. She'd walked straight into his arms like she was always supposed to be there. And she'd kissed him. Years of wondering what she would taste like, how soft her lips would feel, and then, in less than the time it took to blink, he knew. A dozen years' worth of sleepless nights, unanswered questions, and now she was … his? Just like that?_

 _The loss of Jessica had long since rendered him a_ _sceptic_ _where matters of the heart were concerned. But if Isobel Crawley could overcome her fears, grant him her trust and open her heart to him, he could damned sure do the same. She was so resolved to love him by the time she admitted it, even if she fumbled a bit whilst finding her feet, that it arrested him: her honesty; her willingness to show him just how vulnerable she was, to let him see her scars. It broke his heart; it overwhelmed him. No wonder it had taken her all these years to get here. It made him raise his own game._

 _It was very early days when the subject of becoming lovers was brought to the fore. Bless her forthrightness; ten years he had been on the brink of madness wanting her, and_ _ **she**_ _was the first to say the words! They were proving to be as well-matched in love as they were in medicine: he would have a thought; she would speak it into being. And it was the_ _ **way**_ _she said it. "I'm sure you couldn't possibly feel the same, seeing as I've only ever been with my husband, but I want you." Those may not have been the exact words, but that was the crux of it. Confidence is sexy, to be sure, but in this instance the opposite went so far beyond. She had no way of knowing it then, but he had not a great deal more experience than she, and just as much angst, if not more. He'd have lain her down right there and then had she so clearly not been ready for it._

 _Baring one's body to another is anxiety-provoking at any stage of life. Even if he hadn't learned that through experience, his career had shown him evidence a thousand times over. At his age it would have been enough to turn his hair_ _grey_ _… had it not gone that way thirty years ago. He was nervous; she was terrified, but together they made their way forward, and when the moment finally came she blessed his body, kissing him in all the places he'd ever hurt. He spoke of losses about which he'd long ago been silenced. Coming home from Lebanon, the QDG had not been received as heroes, but in her arms and beneath her lips he felt exactly that._

 _She wept for her own losses: two miscarriages in the years before Matthew's birth and a garish hysterectomy just weeks after her husband had died (He would later learn that her womb was not the only casualty that day). And then she had lain beneath him and given him her body, all innocent_ _candour_ _and beautiful brokenness and bewitching dark eyes showing him everything she felt: fear and first-time jitters and grief and exhilaration and hunger and love, love,_ _ **love.**_

 _She had proven insatiable once the nerves were out of the way, and he couldn't believe his luck. Small wonder she had enjoyed marriage so much! He felt so smug walking around the hospital, watching her work, with his knowledge of just where to kiss the back of her neck, of the exquisite indecencies that fell from her lips when he was deep inside of her._

 **oOo**

"Shit!" Clearly he'd dropped off to sleep at some point, or he wouldn't be finding himself abruptly jolted awake. In his groggy state he has lost all awareness of where he is, and when he reaches for her and finds her side of the bed cold and empty, he panics. It is the sort of dread that makes a person bolt straight upright, hyperventilating and breaking into a cold sweat.

 _Right, breathe. You're in the flat, ye wanker._ _Notting_ _Hill … still not ringing any bells? You don't remember driving two hundred bloody miles?_ He shakes his head and gets up for the loo. At the sink he examines himself in the mirror and concludes that the visage staring back at him looks a hundred years old. He splashes his face with cold water and returns to the bedroom. It's entirely possible that he'll be working for the next twenty-four hours straight and he'll never survive it without sleep. He wraps her t-shirt round the pillow and hugs it against his chest, and little by little he lapses back into sleep.

 **oOo**

 _She told him at the outset that she would never have sex if she was not in love, with particular emphasis on the corollary: when she went to bed with him, that was it; she would love him always. Marriage had shifted from a taboo subject to the topic of every conversation roundabout the time that Lavinia Swire broke off her engagement to Matthew. By the time Matthew and Mary were engaged, he had bought a ring, which he carried in his pocket for months, thinking he'd know the right time when it came. They were all together —Matthew and Mary, Isobel and he— at the Newton house for a social engagement-turned-long weekend. Isobel was in her element, playing mother hen as she was inclined to do whenever her son was home, and so Richard whisked Matthew off to the pub for a swift half. Matthew was well into his thirties, and his father had been gone for over twenty years. It wasn't that Richard had concerns about her son accepting him as a stepfather. They were mates, and had been since before his relationship with Isobel became a romantic one. It was more like he wanted to feel Matthew out, to see what he knew about his mother's feelings on remarriage, his conversation with her on that score having proved to be a comedy of errors._

 _Matthew, as it turned out, found the situation hysterical. His mother had been in his other ear for months. "Do you suppose Richard will ever propose? I'm sure he thinks I'd never accept him after that awful mess at the pub, but I'd marry him tomorrow if only he'd ask!" He'd grown so weary of watching her wringing her hands that he'd told her she should be the one to ask Richard, and he was only half joking. Knowing his mother, he wouldn't put it past her to do exactly that!_

 _After Matthew had got the laughter under control, he told Richard that he'd never seen his mother happier, and that he credited him with breathing life back into her. He went on to say that as far as he was concerned, the two of them were already as married as she and his father had ever been, and that he couldn't imagine there would be a_ _ **bad**_ _time to ask._

 _And so he had chosen a quiet moment during a wedding reception they had both been reluctant to attend to take her aside. Alone in the conservatory at Beningbrough Hall they had danced to music carried on the wind from the party inside. She'd bought a beautiful dress for the occasion (because, as she'd told him, she finally had someone to wear it for), and he'd coordinated his suit and tie to it and she joked that it felt like they ought to be the ones getting married. And he'd said a silent thanks to whatever forces had brought her into his life because he could not have_ _dreamt_ _of a smoother entrée._

" _All this talk of weddings lately," she told him, "—this one's a sham, but still it's been such good fun— ... I avoided all of this for so long, and now suddenly it's all around us … and I'm not afraid at all anymore."_

 _He knelt before her, withdrawing the velvet box from his pocket. "I'm so glad to hear you say that, because I've been carrying this around with me for months now, thinking I'd know when the time was right. But I've been advised recently that there really isn't any such thing as a wrong time, and that if I were to ask you, you'd say yes. In fact, I understand that you've entertained the notion of just asking me yourself …_

" _I know that I tried this once and buggered it up and you've been most gracious to admit to knowing me after that disaster ..." He grinned in self-effacement and she giggled. "Whether or not we're married is inconsequential. I'm going to love you irrespective of whether a piece of paper says I've the legal right to do so. All the same … I thought I knew love. I thought I'd reached the pinnacle a very long time ago and that I'd have to live on what had been for the rest of my life. Then I met you … and_ _realised_ _I'd never known anyone who could get my blood up faster!" His eyes danced impishly._

 _"Honestly," she huffed, affecting a roll her eyes and giving a playful shove to his shoulder._

 _"I met you," he went on, "and realised_ _that I had to toss out every notion I'd ever had about what love was. You … you are love. It drives everything you do, every word you say, every decision you take. I've never known anyone like you. You loved me as a friend, and you haven't even got to say it for me to know you love me now. And I'd be pleased to go on as we are for the rest of our lives, but imagine how it would be if we were to do so as husband and wife. Isobel, will you marry me?"_

 _"Yes, Richard. Yes, of course, I'll marry you! Come here, my love. Come here!" She helped him to his feet, threw her arms around him and held his trembling body. That moment had come to be the one he most often recalled: loving her with such intensity that asking forever of her made him shake like a leaf, and her warmth enfolding him, soothing him; soft whispers in his ear and her palm resting over his heart._

 _He slid the ring onto her finger and drew her closer, and they danced until dusk, just the two of them, embracing; hardly moving. When they had to make their way back to the party, it was only for long enough to share the news with a positively delighted Matthew._

 _His hands were on her before they made it to the car park. She had his tie off, the two topmost buttons of his shirt open. He drove with one hand on the wheel, the fingers of the other hand snaking beneath the skirt of her dress to caress her inner thigh. She fumbled the key in the front door lock while he kissed the back of her neck, and when they got inside she pushed him up against the door as it closed behind them. He slid his hands up under the hem of her dress and lifted her off her feet. And that's when he discovered how little there was to her knickers._

 _He'd have taken her against the door, but she was adamant they go to bed, and when they got there he was glad of her insistence. They undressed one another in front of the full-length mirror and then he held her, skimming his hands over her curves so that she could watch. He had since recalled with regularity her dusky, heavy-lidded eyes and the silk of her skin as she moved against him._

 _He laid her down and they touched and teased until neither could stand it any longer and she slipped him inside of her. They wept and laughed and he watched her, felt her break twice, breathless and beautiful beneath him._

 **oOo**

Thoughts of her refuse to leave him in peace as the hours wear away. The bed proves too bloody big, too empty and cold without her, and sometime after half past one in the morning he takes her pillow with him into the lounge and lies down on the couch. It doesn't help; he is acutely aware of the untold sleepless nights she's spent in the very same spot. The knowledge that he is now lying exactly where the supple leather upholstery has caressed the velvet of her skin is driving him to madness.

He gives up at four o'clock and goes into the kitchen to make coffee, only to find that there is none. He growls as he remembers packing it away to bring with them to Newton. He's not due in the surgery until half past seven, but he rummages through the wardrobe and lays out his clothes. The sooner he's out of the flat, with all of its reminders of her, the better.

Before any of that, however, he needs to shower. And rather than improve his situation, that particular task only makes it, well, _harder._ He chastises himself for doing such an abysmal job of controlling his lust. _Christ, ye numpty. Yer nae fifteen._ He turns the tap as cold as he can bear it and wills himself to think of charting, of traffic and whether there might be a better route to work. Anything but the salty sweetness of Isobel's skin, the way the water runs in rivulets that collect in the hollows of her collarbones. No; he will not imagine her nipples, hard as pebbles in his palms as he glides his soap-slicked hands over her breasts, or the slip of his erection into the cleft of her bum; the heavenly friction; her delighted gasp of approval.

 _Dammit!_ He digs the heels of his hands into his eye sockets, desperate to will away the images. He's in a bad way, all right.

And it's only Monday.

* * *

*Adapted from the Series 3 CS transcript


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Back with a new bit. Lyrics this chapter are taken from "Look After You" by The Fray. Give it a listen if you haven't heard it before, and even if you have. I've wept on more than one occasion at how perfectly Richobel this song is. There is more written but it doesn't come next in the sequence of events. It's a couple of jumps ahead, so now I'm working to catch up. I hope you enjoy; please drop me a line!**

 **xx,~ejb~**

* * *

Perhaps her early awakening is for the best after all. When the crew arrive at eight o'clock sharp, she's already showered and dressed and has enjoyed a long, slow amble down to the river and back with MacTavish. She's filled the bird feeders and cleaned out the birdbath, and, that done, fixed a large pot of coffee and mixed up a double batch of scones.

She meets the crew out in the drive as she sits nursing her second cup. Whilst chatting to the foreman she realises that they'd played here together as children, he and she; his mother and father had owned the house in the opposite end of the lane and his mum had been a dear friend of her Aunt Mairin. She feeds the entire crew breakfast as they two catch up. As it turns out, he married a local girl, another summer chum, and they'd four children together; two girls and two boys, all grown. One daughter in London: a barrister, QC. (She makes a mental note to mention this to Matthew; perhaps they're acquainted.) The other out in Oswestry: married and raising adorable twin boys (whose photos she does not have to work at all to gush over). The two sons poised to take over the company: one managing the business and the other presently overseeing a kitchen remodel in Leeds; each of them married and raising young families.

As she tells her story (the whole of it, from falling for Reg to losing her dad; Matthew's birth and childhood and schooling at Eton and Oxford; Reg's death; selling the surgery to Ed and moving to London and meeting Richard), it strikes her again out of the blue: she _misses_ Richard.

Eventually she clears off, leaving the crew to get to work. She's plenty of her own work to do; the shrub roses have faded and need cutting back, and this is the last opportunity to prune the chrysanthemums to shape before they begin to set buds for autumn bloom. As she gathers up the needed tools she thinks to look at her phone for the first time since rising. She expects a text message from Matthew, and perhaps from Mary. As it happens she has one from each of them. Matthew is checking she's alright in the big house by herself, and Mary is sharing a link to a face cream she bought on Amazon.

What she isn't expecting is a message from Richard.

 _Forgot we didn't have coffee in anymore. Ended up at that hipster cafe the junior docs all rave about. Coffee = passable. Atmosphere = shite. Pretentious wankers all. This was playing though and I had to look it up after. Says all the right things. X_

He's sent her an audio file, and she puts down her tools and sits on the bench beside the arbor to listen.

 _If I don't say this now, I will surely break  
_ _As I'm leaving the one I want to take  
_ _Forgive the urgency, but hurry up and wait  
_ _My heart has started to separate_

 _Oh, oh  
_ _Oh, oh  
_ _Be my baby  
_ _And I'll look after you_

She gasps, nearly falling off her seat. He's never been shy in expressing his feelings for her, but his way of doing so is matter-of-fact and direct. As such, the poetical nature of the song has her gobsmacked. Never has he given her any indication that the separation would be as hard on him as it's proving to be on her.

Of course he hasn't done; she'd have insisted on going back with him, and there's no real reason why she should be there. Her commitment to the hospital has been fulfilled; she's well and truly retired now, and he couldn't see any reason she should hang about any longer in a place she's always felt a stranger, not when her home —the place where she had spent her happiest years, and where they would build a new life together— stood ready and waiting for her.

The pounding of hammers and the tinny whirring of electric saws cuts through her thoughts, and she walks back behind the house to listen to the rest of the song. Past the smattering of outbuildings, through the stile and down the grassy, tree-lined lane, stopping to lean against a fence post. She takes in the view from where she stands, the peak of the roof just visible along with the tops of the fir trees, the willows, the Japanese maples; all of it _hers_ now. Small wonder he wants her to spend her first week of retirement here; a lifetime in the making has this dream been.

She presses 'play' again and closes her eyes.

 _There now, steady love, so few come and don't go  
_ _Will you, won't you be the one I always know?  
_ _When I'm losing my control, the city spins around  
_ _You're the only one who knows, you slow it down_

She checks all of her pockets for a tissue and ends up having to use the sleeve of her cardigan to dry her eyes, struck as she is by a sudden deluge of tears. It isn't wise to read too much into someone else's song, but if it meant enough to Richard to send it to her, then he's identified something of himself, her, _them_ in it somewhere, and that merits exploration.

 _If ever there was a doubt  
_ _My love, she leans into me  
_ _This most assuredly counts  
_ _She says most assuredly_

She has felt about him like the lyrics describe since long before their romance began, but she's had no indication that his experience is the same. Oh, there's always been love by the pint. He was, after all, in love with her quietly for a number of years whilst her heart still belonged to Reginald. But is he sending her the message that he, too, feels a completeness in their union that he is desperate for now they're apart? That she is the force that grounds him? She definitely doesn't feel like she could be that for him; she: so impulsive; always quick to rush headlong into the unknown at the slightest suggestion she might be needed. _He_ is the grounded one, she thinks. The anchor to her storm-tossed vessel.

Just when she thinks that the song must be over, one last bit of lyric brings her to her knees right there in the gravel path.

 _It's always have and never hold  
_ _You've begun to feel like home, yeah  
_ _What's mine is yours to leave or take  
_ _What's mine is yours to make your own_

It could have been Richard himself singing those words. She'd long since lost count of the number of times he'd told her that she was responsible for having given him a home, at long last.

" _Because of you, I've a family now,"_ he'd told her as they lay together, a tangle of sheets and limbs after making love on the night he proposed. " _I'm home, Isobel. For the first time since leaving Edinburgh, I'm home."_

Suddenly it's crystal clear: _he's been saying it all along._ She's just been too caught up in the notion that the other shoe's about to drop, that she can't possibly just _have_ Richard now without the spectre of foreboding lurking in a dark corner. Words he said to her ages ago suddenly echo in her head: _Sometimes life's just_ _ **good,**_ _love._ She weeps and it's years of regret: time wasted looking over her shoulder when she ought to have been revelling in the good thing she'd found. And relief; she can start over right now. Today. And above everything else there is gratitude. How many people get to live a love story like hers once in a lifetime? And she's done it twice!

Long moments pass before she's able to pull herself together, and it's a good job she's walked so far back from the house. Her mind is a jumble of thoughts, and she knows she needs to text Richard back. He'll have precious little time to check his phone today, but when he does, she wants him to see she's acknowledged his sharing of something so moving, as it will have taken untold vulnerability on his part to do so. But there is no way to address its implications via text message.

 _Good morning, darling,_ she puts, pausing and sighing. What to say, how to say it? _Thank you for the track. It's lovely. I can certainly see why it made you take notice._

She doesn't get to add anything more before a new message notification appears on the screen. She flips over to it and is greeted by the image of a Scottish terrier with what looks like a smile on his face and a red paisley bow tie on his collar. Before even glancing at the message beneath the photo she knows the sender: Elsie Carson.

 _Charles said Richard would appreciate Angus' new swag,_ the message begins. She laughs aloud. Appreciate it indeed. Heaven knows where they found the bow tie, but it's an exact match for her favourite one of Richard's.

She reads on.

 _Would love to see you, madam pensioner! Angus misses his playmate!_

She flips back to Richard long enough to send her message as is. Has she said everything she wanted? No, but then most of it won't convey without speaking to him, which can only happen much later.

In the meantime, distraction has just presented itself in the form of Elsie's text.

Female friendships have never come easily to Isobel. From a young age she'd always been driven and ambitious; much of what was considered childish fun by most was a waste of time in her eyes. She'd her mum and her Gran, her many aunts and several girl cousins a little bit older whom she admired, but even then none of them were peers. They were more like goalposts. Markers to aim for. Her brother's best mate was their neighbour, Reginald Crawley, whom she liked every bit as much as fancied. In time Reg became her best friend, her first kiss. Her boyfriend, fiancé, husband. Her right hand at work, in life and in love.

The only time it was strongly suggested by her parents that she put forth the effort to make a friend of the same sex was when her brother brought home Alice Tamworth. Two years ahead of Isobel at Lady Barn House, Alley was always in the right places with the right people, popular with the athletic crowd. She was a nice enough girl, but rather vacuous. They grew a bit closer after Eddie married her, with Alley serving as matron of honour when Isobel and Reg were wed, but that was rather more a case of Alley being the only young woman she knew than Isobel considering her a true friend or sisterly figure.

In medical school, and in the early years of her career, other women tended to view her as a threat. The fact that she received her MBChB aged twenty and made senior house officer before she was twenty-five did little to suggest otherwise, and she couldn't have cared less. She was busy doing the work she'd always dreamt of; rising quickly through the ranks, happy, fulfilled, and in love.

In later years, the women she encountered were all under her supervision: nurses, junior docs, med students. Some of them whose presence and character she enjoyed very much. But even there she could be little more than an adviser, perhaps a bit of a motherly figure to a special few.

It hadn't mattered to Isobel, this lack of female camaraderie, for a long time. Even after Reg's death, when she was shaken completely off her foundation, her mum was there. Her Aunt Mairin was there. But inside another five years she'd lost them both. With Matthew finishing law school she'd found herself submerged in loneliness and thrashing about desperately for a lifeline.

Enter St. Mary's Hospital. A new city, a new beginning, and yet once more she found herself alone amongst women in the same stage of professional life. She was still the teacher, the overseer, only now in a larger, faster-paced environment. She'd a lovely team, including, by the end of her tenure, a senior house officer with whom there was a connection, almost sisterly.

But then, along came Richard.

A new ally, sparring partner. Best friend. And, once again, a man. Her _love;_ who'd have thought? It wasn't until they were married and on the brink of retirement that she identified a missing piece in their tableau.

There arose in her a desire for he and she both to find friends who had trodden the same path. To know that the wonder of a fresh start —everything blossoming in a season typically marked by a long, slow fade— resounded with someone else besides just they two. She envisioned celebrating the milestones alongside others who could fully appreciate the extraordinary nature of it all.

A spur-of-the-moment surprise from Richard: a trip to the seaside. Scarborough; an old favourite place she'd not visited in twenty years. A chance meeting on the beach initiated by a bounding beagle and a tearaway terrier. The moment MacTavish met Angus, Isobel knew she was going to have a task separating them. And the instant Isobel met Angus' mum: all smiling self-deprecation, a flash of fiery auburn hair and rich lilting brogue, she'd a sneaking suspicion that they two would be the same.

Isobel thinks briefly of texting Elsie back, but there simply isn't a shorthand way of sharing her circumstances or the brainchild she's just had. She taps the button to ring Elsie's phone instead.

" _Hello," comes her friend's lilting answer on the first ring._

"Elsie. Your message couldn't have come at a better time, love."

" _Izzy? You don't sound yourself. Whatever's the matter? Not Richard, surely. MacTavish alright?"_

Elsie's concern makes her smile. Who would ever have thought that strangers beside the seaside would become fast friends living within half an hour of each other?

"Yeah, no, they're … MacTavish is fine. Richard as well, only …" She pauses. This is a pretty big vulnerability to admit to. She hasn't got time for self-loathing, but if she had, then this would provide her with ample fodder.

" _Whatever it is, surely it can't be that bad!"_

Isobel laughs, sharp and mirthless, kicking at the gravel beneath her feet. Two fat, wet droplets land in the dirt and she looks up, puzzled. There isn't a cloud in the sky. Then she feels the evidence of teardrops running down her neck.

"Oh, Christ, I'm … I'm _crying,_ Elsie! I never do, and so far this morning I've done nothing else. Listen, I don't suppose there's a chance you'd be free to come out, would you?"

" _I'll be right there, soon as. What can I bring? Do you need anything?"_

The alarm in her friend's voice registers. "It's not … we're fine here. Everyone is fine. There is no emergency, and I don't want to take you away from Charles. Only Richard's finishing out his commitment to the hospital this week and I'm all alone out here. And clearly not handling it well!"

" _Oh, honey, hush now. It'll be alright. I'm so glad you rang. It just so happens Charles is away till Thursday late and I've nothing pressing, and I was wondering whether you were in Yorkshire this week anyway. You see, it was meant to be!"_

"If you're sure," Isobel hedges, swiping at renegade tears. "I'd come to you except I've got tradesmen in and I'm stuck here a couple of days till they're through. And I haven't got a kitchen at the moment, but there's good takeaway and a bakery in the village, and I can still put the kettle on. Um …" She pauses for a moment; doubt doesn't get a foothold often, but this … _thing_ … girlfriends … it's foreign territory. "I don't suppose you'd stop here? A day or two, perhaps?" She rushes the words out, finishing on a gasp. "What am I saying? That's too much to ask."

" _Isobel." Elsie's tone puts Isobel in mind of a headmistress: masterful and commanding, brooking no argument. "Of course I'll stay. Separating Angus from MacTavish will be a laugh anyway, once they're reunited. And I'll bring wine. What else?"_

"Yes," Isobel allows. "Much wine, I think. Nothing else; just _you."_ Shaking her head, she amends, "Oh, and your swimming costume."

" _Wait,_ _ **what?"**_

Having anticipated her friend's reaction, Isobel grins. "I know, I know. Wait until you see it! Thirty thousand for a hole in the ground I've got to heat, and we'll only use it four months of the year. The things we do for love, Elsie. That's all I can say. It's the only thing Richard's ever mentioned wanting. He's given up everything to move up here with me. It felt like the least I could do."

" _Then I'll bring a raft of sun cream, 'cos I don't see you needing it!"_

"Ah, but I've got my own resident Celt, don't forget. We practically own stock. Are you positive you don't mind coming over? God knows what we'll even do out here; I'm not much fun at the moment."

" _And I'm a regular riot over here. Lord, lovey, stop making it such an attractive offer, will you?" Elsie laughs and it lightens the mood._

"Sorry. I'm sorry … I just … I'm pathetic! No two ways about it. I'll rally though. I swear it."

" _Makes no difference to me either way. Now get off the phone so I can pack! I'll text when we're leaving here. Alright?"_

"Thanks, darling. I'll be waiting."

She can't help but smile after Elsie rings off. She won't have to face her _aloneness,_ alone. And perhaps sharing her thought processes will help her sort out what feels like a head full of fairy lights, hopelessly tangled from spending a year in a box.

On her way back to the house, she snips some lavender and fat, white hydrangeas. She sets about making up one of the guest rooms and arranges the flowers in a stoneware crock on the dressing table. And then she thinks of more she wants to say to Richard.

 _I'm dying to know, in your own words, what that song means to you. I hadn't considered that being apart might be hard for anyone but me. That sounds selfish and awful but there you have it. I'd never realised how many times a day you kiss me, either. I miss your mouth. And the rest. X_

She presses 'send' before she has a chance to read it over, and when she does she can't believe how salacious it sounds. That was completely unintended, but rather than regret it, she realises it's perfect. The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. So help her, God.


End file.
